‘Oh, Captain Norris, pray don’t talk to me like that! You are mistaken; I am not the good woman you take me for.’
‘I must talk, and you must hear me to the end, Liz! I wanted to say all this to you last time I was in San Diego, but a grave doubt prevented me. But now I have come back to find you free, and I cannot hold my tongue any longer. I am not a boy, to be uncertain of my feelings. I am a man and my own master, and making a sufficient income to keep you in comfort. Be my wife, Liz; I won’t ask you to marry in a hurry, but promise you will be my wife some day, and I will summon up all the patience I possess, and live on the hope of the future.’
‘I cannot,’ she said, in a low voice.
‘You cannot!’ he echoed; ‘and why?’
‘I don’t think you should ask me. I don’t think you have the right to ask me. But it is impossible. I shall never be your wife.’
‘Does any one stand between us?’
Liz was silent. She would not tell the truth, and she could not tell a lie. Captain Norris turned on her almost fiercely in his keen disappointment.
‘There does,’ he exclaimed. ‘I know it, without your speaking, and I know who it is into the bargain,—the same man who drove me from San Diego last time without speaking,—Henri de Courcelles.’
‘You have no right to make the assertion, without authority,’ retorted Liz Fellows; ‘but since you have done so, I will not stoop to deny it. You are right; I am engaged to be married to Monsieur de Courcelles, but the fact is not generally known, and so I trust you will respect my confidence.’
Hugh Norris dropped his head upon his hands.